OPINION:
Thank you for your article “Syrian White Helmets evacuated to Jordan through Israel” (Web, July 22), about Israel’s daring mission to save hundreds of Syrian volunteer rescue workers and their families from Syrian President Bashar Assad’s murderous, Iranian-backed war machine.
Israel has always extended a hand to those in need. The Jewish state has aided typhoon victims in the Philippines, tsunami victims in Sri Lanka, Thailand and Indonesia, and earthquake victims in Armenia, El Salvador, Colombia, Turkey and Haiti. It has helped terrorism victims in Argentina and Kenya and survivors of hurricane Katrina and Sandy here in the United States.
In response to the 1994 Rwandan genocide and the 1999 ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, Israel set up emergency field hospitals, treating thousands. In Kosovo Israel established the region’s only maternity ward for Kosovar refugees, saving the lives of many Muslim women and infants.
Israel has also treated about 4,000 people wounded in the Syrian civil war and provided food, medicine and aid to another 200,000 Syrian civilians in need across the border. And Israel’s “Save a Child’s Heart” program has brought more than 3,000 children from around the world to Israel for life-saving cardiac surgery, from places as far-flung as Ghana, Morocco, Congo, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Romania and China, as well as the Palestinian territories, Jordan and Iraq.
Israel has always aspired to be a “light unto the nations.” This is yet another example of how Israel is fulfilling that mission.
STEPHEN A. SILVER
San Francisco
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